The Cheeseburger Dilemma

Blizzard is asking for feedback on class balance and answering theorycrafting questions. This article continues our coverage of hunter-related discussions in the thread. You’ll find all of the official posts regarding hunters in MoP in the WHH MoP Hunter Guide.

– – –

Otsego: Recently GC posted about how Devs can’t be too open to public opinion. His reasoning basically boils down to (paraphrasing here) “no one wants to get nerfed, but we need to nerf occasionally.” Yet that misses the point of many players complaints and doesn’t address the big picture.

Let’s say you go to a restaurant for a Cheese burger, and let’s say you hate mayonnaise (I do). So you look at the menu and read what comes on the cheese burger, and there is no mention of nasty mayo. So you order it and when it comes out BAM a big ol nasty glob of mayo on your burger. So you say “Hey when I ordered this there was no mention of mayo on the menu.” Then your waiter says “Oh, well we decided its better this way.” You say “Ok I’m glad you think so, but I don’t like mayo. Can I have the burger I ordered instead?” To which the waiter replies “No, see you’ll like it better with mayo.” To which you reply “I think I know what I like better than you do.” Then the waiter “Well we still believe it’s better with mayo so that’s how its going to stay.” Then you ask “Do you want me to be a customer?”

The point is balancing dps output / healing is all fine and dandy but changing the way a class plays isn’t necessary to do so. Nerfing the dps output of skill A from class A while buffing spell B from class B is also a viable solution. Some would say that can’t always solve the issue of balance as some classes may burst dps better than others. Its seems Blizzard’s approach to solve this would be to bog the class down w/ more skills, spreading the dps out. When a much easier answer would be to lower one existing spell and raise another.

But if balancing is the true concern then why is there such a difference in the complexity and length (length being most important) of the classes’ rotation/priority list? I have mained a hunter since I started playing, but have also grinded up a mage, boomkin, s.priest, and prot pally. Three of these classes will have half or less than half the priority list of my hunter when they reach lvl 90. That is not balanced.

YES YES I KNOW other classes such as DK are plagued with over-complexity and I feel your pain.

But I don’t believe the changes are always intended for balance. Let’s think about it, after a decade of this game they haven’t got it right? They feel classes need tweeking? No they believe that changes to the characters offers more depth into the game. It doesn’t. When it all boils down to it we come to fight the bosses (or players) and everything else is just mashing buttons. Game depth doesn’t come from learning how to play, it comes from playing. Memorizing 25 keybinds is nowhere near as fun as coordinating attacks with a group, in order to defeat a ten story tall monster.

Lastly why it is unfair for Devs to change my class drastically. Because 3 years ago I made this character based on how it was then. If someone would have told me that Blizzard will add FIVE new CDs to the character in two expansions, rendering it a game of whackamole, well I would have probably rolled a different class. And YES I still can, but all the time and effort spent on this character will be lost and that isn’t right.

But if you still say you know best and the players can’t decide what’s more enjoyable to them, Then why OH WHY did you just FINALLY decide to get rid of minimum range. Truth is (at least on that one) the players know best.

Here’s a great way to look at this. I ordered my Cheeseburger (made a hunter) a while back, and now Blizzard just slapped some mayo on it, and I don’t like mayo, and you’re not going to convince me it’s better with mayo. [link]

Ghostcrawler: You have to consider that WoW is a multiplayer game in which players are very often competing, whether comparing damage meters in a raid or out and out trying to kill each other in PvP. Changes to your character end up affecting everyone who comes into contact with your character. If you can order up exactly what you want, you’re affecting a bunch of other people.

In your hamburger analogy, you’re telling the restaurant “You should make sure that nobody can have mayonnaise because I don’t like it.”

I’ve actually used the restaurant analogy myself, because few restaurant patrons have the impression that they’re going to be able to go back into the kitchen, give the chefs pointers, rearrange the menu and so on just because they think highly of their own opinions on food. Restaurants may honor your request to hold the salt or put the dressing on the side, and many chefs are probably thrilled to get feedback on the dishes they prepare to get an idea of what their customers like or not, but ultimately if you don’t like a restaurant’s food, you should probably go to another restaurant, not try and change the menu.

As far as class complexity, that’s another attempt to serve a very diverse player base. Some players like a few buttons and some like to have a lot. If the restaurant required every dish to have the same number of ingredients, that doesn’t improve the quality of the food. I only think it’s a problem if some classes are so much more challenging to play that those players expect to do higher DPS as a result, or I guess if the number of buttons is truly stupid.

Also, remember that there is a huge difference between reasonable and optional. If adding an ability to your rotation improves your DPS by 1% then it might not be worth worrying about. I actually wish guides would focus a little more on describing both the “90% rotation” as well as the “theoretically highest rotation.” [link]

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading...Loading...